


Hanging in the Stars

by emynii, ObliObla



Series: Nia & Obli's Whumptober 2019 [21]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Dissociation, Drug Use, Existential Angst, Gen, Loss of Control, Season/Series 04, Stars, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-31 16:51:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21149015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emynii/pseuds/emynii, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObliObla/pseuds/ObliObla
Summary: The music is loud and vibrant, shuddering along his nerves in rivulets of pleasure as he dances first with one human, then another, then by himself, pressed against innumerable bodies, but feeling nothing but freedom in the connection.Hell,this is good shit.For the Whumptober prompt: laced drink





	Hanging in the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Additional warnings are in the end notes.
> 
> I fear, too early; for my mind misgives  
Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,  
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date  
With this night's revels and expire the term  
Of a despised life, clos'd in my breast,  
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.  
—Romeo and Juliet, Act I Scene IV

It is Saturday, and a new shipment has come in, smuggled in from God knows where—the _ bastard_—by Lucifer’s usual guy. The package is a bit late, and frustration thrums in his veins, but he knows something sweeter will sing in them soon.

Although…

He swirls the questionable looking liquid around its container. It tastes awful, but few things are quite as effective at loosening him up. Sometimes, he wants something a little more _ niche _ than the coke, the pot, and the molly.

Not that he’s not planning on mixing it up a bit, but why the hell not?

A few nauseating gulps, washed down with a fifth of whiskey and a handful of pills, and the evening is finally in proper swing. He does his set, makes a few favors, and then, as the real edge starts to kick in, heads out onto the dance floor, to desire and be desired in return. And to forget. Always, it seems, these days, to forget.

The music is loud and vibrant, shuddering along his nerves in rivulets of pleasure as he dances first with one human, then another, then by himself, pressed against innumerable bodies, but feeling nothing but freedom in the connection.

_Hell,_ this is good shit.

Sensations begin to blur together, swirling around him as Joseph’s cloak might have, in a desert long ago, pulsing to the music, his heartbeat pulsing alongside him. He pulls at the threads of their desires, wrapping them around himself, each one rough or smooth, warm or cool, weaving them into a tapestry of want, like the tapestry of the stars. Slipping it over his shoulders, meeting them with a touch, a dance, a kiss—harsher now, a drawing in, a hand tight against skin, desires leaping from their flesh to tear through the air, slide against his mind in an echo of his power, his own needs brought to bear.

What a glorious give-and-take is _ this? _ The masses of bodies more one organism than a collection of individuals. And he has always prided his independence, but, in this moment, it is no sacrifice to lose it to such connection he can rarely otherwise obtain. He is kissing a man, wrapping his free arm around a woman, bringing them into the aura of his rhythm, when the motions falter, and some edge of control begins to slip he didn’t anticipate.

_ What do you desire? _ he means to ask, but the desire is shimmering on their faces already. And this is normal, certainly, but when he casts his eye on the crowd around him, all watching him with eagerness (to be expected, also certainly) what isn’t expected is the trace of mania to it, nor how their desires don’t simply come when he calls, but press forward to meet him.

He blinks, and something, somewhere inside, shivers with a feeling his doesn’t understand. The lights are flickering to the beat, now—have they always done so? The vibrations in the air, the bodies brushing, pressing, _ pressing _ delve past his skin, sinking their sharpening teeth into his soul. And the pain is as pleasure, but it is also, suddenly, too much. Too much, too many. This is different; this is _ wrong... _

What was _ in _ that drink?

A maelstrom of color it is, now. A wildfire blazing out of the kind of control that even in the depths of intoxication he never seeks. Oh, but there is such glory in this turbulence, and fear is so hard a thing to cling to when there is beauty he has not seen since Heaven, or since Hell, so brilliant and jagged it hurts to look upon it. And he has always sought out beauty. They come at him as waves beating ceaselessly against his shore, now, but there is such sweetness in oblivion.

Their desires reverberate back in his own soul, a flickering licking at the inside of his skin. They want, they want, they _ want, _ and he wants in return. How precious is desire, and how sublime to fulfill it, to find a need, a place, a hollow, and pull himself into shape to match its boundaries. Even the stars he wove from the desire of matter to join together, or perhaps it was only his own desire for something wondrous that was not His work. And now someone is touching his belt, and someone is kissing his lips, and he is leaning into them, and their desires are truly from the stars, so close as to almost burn him.

This one, her desire in thinning lips and flashing teeth and the sharpness in her gaze. That one, lust in his eyes bursting into technicolor, warped by the beat of the music, reaching out with hands that touch and caress. But his control slips again, and soft touches turn to knives, and he staggers away. But who is _ he _ and who are _ they _ and is there any real difference?

And does he want there to be?

He can taste such overwhelming, aching _ want _ when he falls under the sway of another, her desires so sharp as to lacerate, so clear on her face they invade his mind in bodies pressing, limbs intertwining, but it is _ too much _ and he pushes past, past the fires blazing in the hearts of others, past some whose desires aren’t for him but for other things, and this is easier, and he almost feels stable again.

This is wrong, this is wrong, this is _ wrong, _ he tells himself, like he might forget if he stops for a moment. He doesn’t want this. He wants to… He wants to… He wants...

His consciousness brushes against another's, hungry and wanting, but not for pleasures offered and received. No, there are darker things lurking there that call to mind not desire but _ punishment; _ but they tear at his far too opened heart and drag him back a throne room, a command, a _ no _ on his lips that was ignored and ignored and _ ignored… _

And he is drawn forward, seeking out the darkness as he always has; though he is a creature of light, he cannot help it. There was a fall as much as there was a rise. More, maybe, for the depths were unplumbed and rife with unknowable things. And there was desire there far crueler than this, and he met it with the same fulfillment, only twisted, just as the want was. Turned from desired pleasure to unwanted pain.

But he can’t, he _ can’t, _ something inside of him says, even as he reaches for the Hell that dwells always within him, for the flames that wish to escape his skin, his eyes. To show torment to souls that require it is just as much his purpose as to grant glory unto kinder ones.

_ Lucifer, Lucifer... _ A voice in the crowd more familiar than the others, but ringing with a strangeness he can’t comprehend, not when— Not... He blinks, but the lights behind his eyelids are as bright and frenetic as any other, and then she is here before him, and there is a reason she shouldn’t be here, but he can’t remember, and there is nothing to her (or there is _ everything _ to her) and when he reaches out for her, he seeks her desires by instinct, no longer in control of it, but is met only with the gentler landing of acceptance, and the wanting, the wanting, the _ wanting _ calms and there is only _ being. _

She takes his hand, and there is stability there, and he breathes slowly, feeling more _ him _ than everything else again. The others’ desires still reach out to him, but it’s easier to focus on _ her _ above all other things as she leads him to the elevator.

And there is blessed peace for a moment, but then there is nothing. And there is silence. And there is _ nothing, _ and if there is no mirror how can he be a reflection?

There’s a sound, a quiet _ ding _ that breaks through his body like waves on a shore, and the elevator doors open. He falls forward, pulling away from her, from _ everything, _ landing hard on his hands and knees, pain shooting up (but pain is _ something, _ is anything) and all his hollowness pulses and aches within him, expelled from his mouth in sour bitterness that is _ awful _ but is so much better than nothing. It is dark, it is so dark, so, _ so _quiet, and there is no desire here. Is only a serenity that pounds against his eyes and ears, and he scrambles at the coldness of the floor, but it’s smooth, so smooth he can hardly feel it, can hardly feel anything at all.

It’s a peace he only knew in the Silver City, a silence stiller than the grave. He has always been a creature of light and desire, will and fire, and Heaven had no extremes. No highs, no lows, only monotony. And its quiet had blazed through him with the cruel pain of painlessness, and left him empty and aching in a way not even kind enough to _ hurt. _

Even falling he had still been himself, even dragging himself from the lake of fire he had been a _ beast _ (but a beast was still a _ thing _even if it wasn't a person) and now he’s nothing at all.

Why did he ever believe there could be peace in the washing of the Lethe? That hollowness would be better than agony?

He reaches, hand shaking, into his jacket’s inner pocket, and retrieves his cigarette case. He pries it open, pulls out a cigarette with unsteady fingers, and drops the case to the floor. He needs. He _ needs… _

She’s talking, but he can’t parse her meaning, and he ignores her, grabbing his lighter from a different pocket. But the lighter refuses to light, and he growls, throwing it and the cigarette across the room.

He is hunched, now, shuddering against the ground, eyes falling closed to block out nothingness with a kinder darkness. He hears her crouch before him, reaching out hesitantly to brush the sweaty hair from his brow, to press her fingertips against his cheek for a long, trembling moment, and he opens his eyes.

And there is such fear on her face that he wants nothing more than to assuage it, to fulfill her desires even though he cannot see them gleam in the air, but when he tries to speak his tongue twists whatever words he means to say into something stranger as confusion overtakes fear, and he no longer remembers what it was he wanted to tell her.

Maybe a plea, maybe gratitude. And maybe an apology, for all the things he has broken.

She is talking, but he still cannot understand, can only see the void where her desires should be so obvious. But instead there is nothing. When she offers him her hand, he nearly falls back to the floor in his desperation to take it, to fulfill at least _ this _ desire, to follow her wherever she might want to lead him.

And when she directs him up the stairs and to the bed he feels centered again. This he understands; this desire is clear. He sits where she commands and reaches for his belt, feeling the leather slip through his clumsy fingers. But she stops him, her hand firm but not shivering with the possessive desperation something inside tells him he should expect. And she doesn’t kneel beside him on the mattress, only pulls away. Though she doesn’t leave (something else he expects, as soon as she’s gotten what she wants) simply stands a few feet away.

And he is bereft (suddenly, abruptly) and he doesn’t understand, had _ thought _ he understood her desires, finally, but is lost again in the not knowing. Though some small, insistent part of him whispers, _ not like this, not like this, not like this, _ and he is forgetting how to breathe, how to _ be _in a place so devoid of desire.

But the only desire he can see is that he stay where she put him and so he will fulfill that, even if he doesn’t understand why she’d want such a thing. And so he sits and waits and slowly (so slowly, excruciatingly slowly) the tumult in his mind dies back to closer to the normal levels, and the emptiness isn’t as overwhelming anymore—though still, as always, it hurts.

And he is simply Lucifer, and she is Chloe, is the detective, and he is curled up in the middle of his bed, clothing askew, while she stands by one of the columns framing the entrance to the bedroom watching.

And he thinks he understands a bit of the shame Eve felt in the garden when she realized she was naked.

He clears his throat, as if something of his dignity might be returned to him if only he bluffs hard enough. “Detective.” He hears his voice shake.

“Lucifer,” she says quietly, “are-are you okay?”

Oh, _ fear. _ Right, yes, of course she was afraid, _ is _afraid. He lost control. He must have frightened her terribly. An ache grows beneath his ribs, and he pulls in on himself just a little more.

But she asked him a question—she’s made her desire clear, and he will fulfill it. “I’m quite alright, Detective.”

Maybe now her concerns will be allayed and she can allow herself to leave him. He wants to be alone. It’s the only thing that makes sense.

Isn’t it?

“Are you _ okay?” _ she asks again, voice sharper, and she pushes off from the stone, walking to the edge of the bed.

He blinks at her. She’s moved even closer, hovering with her knees almost pressed to the mattress, eyes averted—he’d assumed—because she, too, was ashamed of his unfastened belt, his unbuttoned shirt, his mussed hair. But now she looks into his eyes, and he sees no shame, no embarrassment, no anger—there is only the fear, and it is not fear _ of _ him but fear _ for _ him.

He clears his throat again. They don’t know how to talk like they used to anymore. Their easy camaraderie died with the fire in his eyes. He cannot assure her he is _ okay, _ but he won’t lie to her. Not now. Not ever. “I had a bad trip, is all. I’ll be fine.”

She nods, not believing him, but willing, for now, to not push. She settles next to him, and he feels the mattress dip. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not particularly,” he manages, past suddenly gritted teeth. How many times now has he used those words as a cudgel? 

But if she remembers the bar, the pool cue, the jibe about ‘accepting’ him, she doesn’t show it, merely nodding again. “If you won’t talk to me, _ please _ talk to Linda.”

He manages to uncurl his body slightly, at that, pulling the front of his shirt together like it might matter. Like fixing this one thing might fix everything. “I...I will.”

She knows that is truly a promise, now. And it seems she still believes it, because a measure of her fear is replaced by a milder concern, and she rises. He can see, on her face, so many things she wants to say, echoes of the same words that lie dead on his tongue. But she says none of them, and neither does he, merely turns away, heads for the elevator.

He hears it _ ding _ again. And then she enters, and she is gone.

He waits in bed until the last of the drug seems to have left his system, wishing desperately he had gotten that elevator lock. When his head clears, he rises, strips off his clothing, and tries to wash away the things he can’t allow himself to feel under the powerful spray of his shower.

When he emerges and dries his hair, he dresses himself in more layers than he normally would, refusing to consider why, and settles on the sofa with a book—well, a quarto—that he’s not actually planning to read.

But he carefully parts the old paper regardless, flipping to the beginning of the text. He runs his fingertips over the word _ star-cross’d _ and sighs, skipping ahead, only faintly skimming the plot.

_ I defy you, stars! _

Desire… _ de sidere… _ from the stars. He closes the quarto and sets it next to him, shaking his head. Some humans used to believe their passions were marked in the stars. That gods brought desires down in threads of light to play with mortal hearts. He steeples his fingers and tips his head up, staring up at the stars he knows lie just beyond the roof of the penthouse.

Do they?

Does _ he? _

As much as he desires the relinquishing of control, he clings to it desperately. Striving with all the refulgence in his soul to believe that he is the maker of his own destiny. That he has bound himself to all that he has been chained to.

That he has a choice.

That even in a universe where the paths of the stars were marked out long ago, freedom truly exists.

It’s hard, sometimes. Easier not to think about, to bury his troubles in his passions until he forgets. But oblivion has its own agonies, and the abyss is so dark it’s hard to see the stars.

So he looks up, instead, and watches them shine.

**Author's Note:**

> Additional warnings: Sensory overload, sensory deprivation, loss of control in a sexual situation (no non-con)


End file.
